Government reviews labour laws

Published: 07 July 2014

INDUSTRY and Commerce minister Mike Bimha has revealed that government was reviewing labour laws to make them more flexible and applicable to the current operating environment.

Addressing members of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Industry and Commerce in Harare last week, Bimha said the current legislation had contributed significantly towards company closures as they were not compatible with the new environment.

"One of the areas that l think we need to address and l think government is addressing is all issues about our labour legislation. I think there have been concerns that our labour legislations are very rigid where it shouldn't be, there is need for flexibility, particularly in the difficult times that we are in," he said.

For a company facing challenges, it will be difficult to retrench. The process has to get approval from the Ministry of Labour which sometimes takes a long time when the company is already bleeding. By the time such approval is granted, the company would have long folded.

". . . government is seized with this matter of making sure that we review our labour legislation to be in line with what we want to achieve," Bimha said.

Bimha said it was possible for some of the companies under judicial management to be resuscitated, but there was need for the government to create an enabling environment apart from sourcing for funding.

He said his ministry was currently identifying key players in various cities particularly those companies that ceased to operate due to lack of working capital, modern equipment and technology.

"Because some of them are probably out of sync with the modern trends, the technology is no longer of any benefit and probably you would want to come up with a new technology all together, but we need to continuously analyse what we have and assist those that we can assist, particularly those which have got a potential of being run well," he said

According to the 2014 National Budget statement, Finance and Economic Development minister Patrick Chinamasa said government had consented to the need to review the country's existing labour laws which tend to be skewed in favour of employees without taking due cognisance of productivity and the capacity of companies to pay.

- newsday